Page 196 of Phobia

KELLEN:I’ll be fine, little lion. Don’t worry about it. I’ll text you when I’m on the way later.

I sent him a kissy-face emoji in reply, then focused on shoving everything else I needed into my backpack. I threw it over my shoulder, grabbed the hanger with my costume, and headed out to see what it was Blaine needed my help with now.

**

Twenty minutes later I’d arrived at the mansion and stood in front of him in his bedroom. He held two pairs of nearly identical boots in his hands. I gritted my teeth.Thiswas what he’d needed my help with. Picking a pair of fucking boots to wear with the rest of his costume.

“Option A or Option B?” he asked.

“What is even the difference?” They were both black designer Chelsea boots.

He shook the pair in his left hand. “These have a red sole.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Sadly, his face was nothing but serious. “Umm, I’d go with the red soles, I guess.” He gave me a clipped nod in thanks.

For the next several hours, I tried to stay out of the way as Blaine barked orders at the setup crew until things were finally to his liking. With a little less than an hour until people were expected to start arriving, we made our way back upstairs to get ready. It didn’t take me long since I’d showered earlier.

While he finished dressing after his shower, I walked over to his photo wall. He’d mentioned once in passing that their interior designer had put the whole thing together a couple of years ago when redoing his room. The designer had even selected the photos. That put a damper on the nostalgic aspect of it, but it was still nice to see the memories on the wall.

There were several pictures of him and his family through the years. It hit me as I moved from one to the next that he wasn’t smiling in any of the family photos. That was sad. In all the times I’d seen these, I had never noticed. Moving further down the wall, the pictures of me and Blaine began. I smiled at one of the ones from football senior year. We were both dirty and sweaty, and our gear sat at our feet. We’d just won a game by two points and would be headed off to the state semifinals soon. I had my arm thrown around Blaine’s shoulder and was grinning ear to ear. Blaine, on the other hand, stood there stiffly—the opposite of how smooth he was on the field—with his lips pressed together and curved up into the tiniest of smiles.

My short trip down memory lane was interrupted when he walked over and spun around once with his arms held up loosely in a “check me out” position. His long jacket, with tails split up the back, spun around with him. While the red sole on the boots made not even the slightest difference, he did make for a stunning devil.

He was tall and fit, and his posture ramrod straight. The crisp, black tailored slacks he wore hugged his body. His tight abs were on display, as he wore a silky black cravat but no shirt. The bespoke jacket was made of scarlet and black fabrics and had a satiny black lining. It both looked and felt luxurious.

His thick, brown hair, so dark it was almost black, was always perfectly styled. This evening he had it slicked back off his face, and a pair of black velvet horns adorned his head. With his alabaster skin tone and a skincare obsession, he was pale year-round. His eyes were a stunning shade of turquoise that rivaled the waters of the bluest ocean, and were framed with long, dark eyelashes. When he fixed them on you, it was hard to look away and nearly impossible to deny him anything, which was why I’d found myself in this position more times than I could count over the years.

“You look fantastic, Blaine, as usual.” I smiled and brushed a piece of lint off his jacket.

“Yes. And while I’ll never understand your costume choices, they do suit you. You look particularly feline this evening.”

“Uh…thank you?”

He nodded. “People will be arriving soon. Let’s go down and get ready to mingle with the peasants,” he joked. At least, I assumed he was joking. I hoped so.

***

Two hours later, things were in full swing. Partygoers in all sorts of costumes milled around, grabbing drinks and food as they roamed from one room to the next. The massive three-story Victorian Gothic mansion was the perfect scene for a Halloween party. The exterior resembled a castle, hauntingly beautiful with a black wood and dark stone base, several spired towers, and a lush yet subdued landscape surrounding it. Every single brick, every single statue, and every single pebble had been strategically placed to enhance the beauty of the place.

When you stepped inside, what drew the eye immediately was the wooden center staircase. Massive and imposing, it stretched upward and then split off in both directions. All three floors of the mansion’s interior had heavy, crimson-red velvet drapery, mahogany piquet flooring, gorgeous stained-glass windows, and antique furniture every way you turned. Many of the walls were covered in deep, bold paint colors, while others had vintage statement wallpaper.

Blaine, or his party planner as I’d learned, had done a fantastic job of selecting decorations that complemented the gothic aesthetic. The lights were dimmed, and some of them had the regular bulbs replaced with flickering red ones for that “Hell on Earth” effect. There were fog machines in several rooms, sending subtle waves billowing and swirling near the floors.

I set my small plate of cabbage leaf dumplings and my virgin strawberry daiquiri down on one of the standing tables that had been placed throughout for the party and checked my phone again. I’d gotten a text from Kellen that he’d been held up at work but was heading home to shower and change. That was over an hour ago, and he still hadn’t shown. I wasn’t worried yet, but I really wished he’d get here. I’d done some dancing, saw Blaine for the requisite five minutes he usually gave me, and had been wandering around people-watching since.

Someone bumped into me, shoving my side into the table and making my plate rattle. “Sorry about that,” they said.

The man was several inches taller than me, and extremely handsome from what I could tell through his Zorro mask. It was the sort of mask that didn’t bother me because it didn’t really disguise all that much. Much better than the creepy scarecrow that had almost given me a heart attack when I saw someone walking around in it earlier. I may have been okay with masks at the party in general, but certain ones still caused a visceral fear that hit deep in my bones.

I gave the man a tight-lipped smile. “No problem.” Expecting him to be on his way now and find someone else to bump into, I turned toward the table again. Some sort of electronic house music was currently playing, and I tapped my fingers on the side of my glass along to the beat.

Instead of walking away, he stepped beside me and placed his glass of whiskey beside my drink. “I’m surprised to see a handsome guy like you alone—”

“I’m not,” I interrupted. “Alone, that is. I’m here with someone, I just seem to have misplaced him at the moment.” It wasn’t completely a lie, and my tone wasn’t rude, but it seemed he felt the letdown anyway.

“Whatever,” he muttered, picking up his whiskey and walking away.

A few minutes later, the hair on the back of my neck prickled, and a shadow fell over me. I did a double take when I glanced over my shoulder. My heart pounded in my chest, beating a mile a minute and stealing the air from my lungs as I slowly spun around. Someone in a black full-face demon skull mask peered down at me with their head askew.